Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Eric Mabius
has put in his time on shows like “Party of Five,” “The O.C.” and
“Popular,” moving on to co-starring roles on “Eyes” and “The L Word”
before landing the role for which he is perhaps most famous (for now),
that of playboy Daniel Meade on “Ugly Betty.” But now Eric wants to show
his fans another side, that of the shy, slightly geeky Harold White in
the Hallmark Channel original movie “How to Fall in Love,” which
premieres Saturday night, July 21 at 9/8c. (Also, head to the Hallmark
Channel’s Facebook fan page an hour earlier at 8/9c for a live, one-hour
Q-and-A with Ellen Fein and Sherrie Schneider, co-authors of “The
Rules,” where they’ll give advice on dating and falling in love.)

When I spoke with Eric recently, he told me how much
fun it was to play this against-type role and working with Brooke
D’Orsay and Kathy Najimy. He also told me all about his new, the
Sundance Film Festival hit “Price Check” with indie queen Parker Posey,
as well as a few other projects.

Daytime Dial: I loved watching you as Harold —
geeky, shy and not at all like Daniel Meade. Was playing a character
like this one of the things that made you want to do this movie?

Eric Mabius: Definitely, that’s part of the reason
why I said yes to the project. I am excited because people will be like,
“Yeah, Daniel, the playboy from ‘Ugly Betty’ is going to play a geek.”
But I think we all have our own inner geek, and it doesn’t take that
much to bring it out.

I know we all may have seen a movie about the guy who’s
geeky and needs direction in life, a sort of ugly duckling story. I felt
like Bart Fisher had written something that was quirky enough and that I
could spin it a little bit differently and still be real, just kind of
drown it in reality. It may seem like an unlikely occurrence, Harold
getting dating lessons from the woman who caused his dysfunction in the
first place, but it’s entirely in the realm of possibility. I believe it
especially because I fell in love with someone from high school, and I
have two sons with her. It definitely was close to home for me. I didn’t
date my wife in high school, but she was definitely by far the coolest
woman there. She was definitely the most beautiful, but she also marched
to the beat of her own drummer. I was in New Orleans 10 years after
high school, and my friend played matchmaker with us, and that’s kind of
how we got together.

DD: Do you have any awkward high-school stories to rival Harold’s homecoming dance experience?

EM: I don’t have very many of those stories
because I moved around a lot. So I knew how to negotiate awkward
situations because I had to learn how to adapt very early on. I chose
the position of being more of a loner, and from that position it always
kept people guessing, which had a certain amount of power. I was an
athlete in high school as well, so I used to travel and compete and
train with the Junior National Luge team, and I got to see the world.
Also, I went to the prom with a friend of mine to avoid all of those
potentially awkward moments. I had a little bit of foresight.

DD: I think this is a really good story to let
people know that there is life after high school — much more — and what
happens to you then isn’t the be-all, end-all of your life.

EM: I think that when you’ve only lived 17
years, you don’t have, you haven’t had a full canon of experiences, so
every moment that you have here feels like the last moment in the world,
because you’ve only had a handful of whatever those moments are. Your
first love, your first dance, your first intensely awkward moments. And
they’re supposed to be intense because it’s the first time we’re
experiencing a lot of those things.

You do have to follow your heart, otherwise you’re living a
false life. Maybe I’m naive or maybe I’m idealistic, but I fell in love
with someone from high school, which is insane. If someone told me that
I was going to marry someone from high school, I would tell him he
needs to have his head checked. But you need to remain open to anything,
because you never know where lightning’s going to strike, where you’re
going to fall in love. You fall in love in the most unlikely times and
places. People try to be very calculated about affairs of the heart, but
it’s never going to work. You’ll end up with a sterile relationship,
I’d think.

DD:
I loved Brooke D’Orsay in “How to Fall in Love” — her character was
just so adorable, and I loved your chemistry with her. How was she to
work with?

EM: You’re correct — she’s absolutely adorable.
So much fun and just so sweet. Oddly enough, as personality types, our
own personalities as actors were the opposite of the characters we were
playing. I think I’m a fairly calm, even person, and she’s slightly more
neurotic, so as people we kind of balance each other out. It was fun
because of the characters we were playing; we were kind of doing the
opposite. When you’re thrown together in a situation like that to try to
manufacture that attraction, you never know if it’s going to work.
Fortunately, Brooke is just so sweet and gracious and honest, and that’s
why I loved working with her. She doesn’t hide much, which makes it
easy and a lot more fun to play.

DD: And Kathy Najimy was just wonderful, and so hilarious!

EM: She absolutely is, and I was so happy to
see her again. She was so good on “Ugly Betty,” and she’s just like this
ball of lightning. She’s got so much energy, and she’s always on —
she’s another person who comes to play, and you’d better bring your A
game. She’s a delight, and she’s just a quality woman.

DD: Tell me about your feature film that you did with Parker Posey, “Price Check.”

EM: Oh my god, you’re going to laugh your ass
off. I think IFC bought the film. It’s a dark comedy centering on this
guy I play (Pete Cozy), who gives up his dreams of being a music
A&R guy. He moves to the suburbs of Long Island and accepts a
marketing job at a small chain of grocery stores. He has a wife and a
child, and is trying to pursue the “American Dream.” Parker Posey’s
character, Susan, is put in charge of this section of grocery stores.
Nobody in the office cares about his job. They’re basically just
punching the clock and biding their time. Susan comes in and shakes
everyone’s universe up. She is so quintessential Parker Posey. She is
brilliant, and she’s so funny. It’s a lot of fun.

DD: You’ve had the opportunity to work with a
lot of strong female leads … Vanessa Williams from “Ugly Betty” comes to
mind. And it’s so nice to know that in real life she is one of the
sweetest people I’ve ever interviewed.

EM: I just saw Vanessa last week. She was being
honored by the Covenant House for all of her charity work for them, and
she invited us to her table. She just grows more beautiful and graceful
with time. In the six or seven years I’ve known her, I have to say she
is one of my favorite people in the world, and she is just one of the
classiest women I know — next to, of course, my mother and my wife — but
she’s just infinitely gracious and kind and giving. I don’t see that
very often in any kind of business, but you certainly see it a lot less
in entertainment — she’s a rare gem.

DD: What about the new USA series “Political Animals”?

EM: I’m really excited about it — excited about
guest-starring on it. You have to keep an eye out for that show.
Separate of me having to do anything with it, just the writing and
acting in it alone is just out of this world. It stars Sigourney Weaver
as the secretary of state, and it also has Ellen Burstyn and Carla
Gugino. It’s just unreal. It’s a political drama, and another show for
me with strong female role models. It’s just so good.